Obama supporters in Israel (from the Gush Shalom site).
More Rahm Stuff–Ketubah, and a Joke My Mother Tells Better Than I Can is the full title of this story from Philip Weiss at Mondoweiss, and it relates a tongue in cheek interpretation of Obama’s appointment of Rahm Emanuel as his Chief of Staff. Strange how this once proClinton politician moved almost unnoticed to the Obama camp, once it became evident that Hillary’s campaign was going down the tubes, especially so since Hillary was probably the most antiPalestinian, proAIPAC Democrat in the field. Her and Bill’s friendly meeting with Israel’s most notorious racist, Avigdor Lieberman, at the Saban Center a few years ago still reverberates in the minds of pro-peace activists.
Listen to Philip Weiss’ mother for insight.
First two names on New Republic’s (TNR) Obama’s power list are David Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel. Emanuel who supported Hillary till June 4, the AIPAC convention, then jumped, and obviously suffered no consequences. Some guys have all the fun. TNR points out that Axelrod signed Emanuel’s ketubah, the Jewish wedding document (when he intermarried and she converted). I.e., they’re tight, nothing’s going wrong here, boychick. First 3 of 6 on the list are Jewish. You’d think that maybe Mr. Obama could sign up David Frum as a speechwriter? That would be nice.
My friend Rupa Shah sent me this piece from Wayne Madsen’s website (for subscribers only so link not provided): Madsen says that Obama may face a security issue with Emanuel since “informed U.S. intelligence sources [say] that prospective Barack Obama White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel has an active FBI counter-intelligence file maintained on him… Questions about Emanuel’s links to the Israeli intelligence service, the Mossad, were allegedly so great that President Bill Clinton was forced to dismiss Emanuel from the White House staff in 1998.”
I never go in for the Mossad stuff because the dual loyalty stuff is so much in plain sight that looking for the secret connection is a little pointless. There’s an old Jewish joke about a rich kid who’s carried up to a Catskills hotel on a pillow by a servant–my mother will say I’m telling this wrong–and a yenta says, “Oh my, the poor boy can’t walk.” The rich kid’s mother overhears it and says, “Thank god he doesn’t have to.” That’s like Emanuel being a Mossad agent. Why would he have to?
The question of dual loyalty is perhaps not so much in question as the question of loyalty to what? The right wing Zionists are suspiciously quiet about this appointment, which should make everyone else suspicious.
Uri Avnery, the founder of the Israeli peace group, Gush Shalom, doesn’t know what to make of Rahm Emanuel’s appointment either. But he is hopeful. Still, when wasn’t Uri Avnery hopeful. This time his hopes are on Obama as the photo above depicts. Will Obama, like the Clintons, disappoint?